1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in meters for a vehicle. In particular, the present invention relates to a meter for a vehicle having a transmission display part for displaying a gear position of a transmission of a vehicle and a driving mode, a speed display part for displaying vehicle speed, and a drive distance display part for displaying drive distance.
2. Description of Background Art
A meter for a vehicle is known from, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-108712 entitled “DISPLAY DEVICE FOR VEHICLE.”
Referring to FIG. 1 of the above publication, when an automatic transmission is used in an automatic mode, each gear position of the automatic transmission is displayed by illuminating any of a plurality of characters “P”, “r”, “N”, “4”, “3”, and “2.”The characters are arranged in a lateral line and are printed in a gear position display part 30. When the automatic transmission is used in a manual mode, a drive distance recorder 10 formed by a liquid crystal display is switched to the gear position display to display any of a plurality of numbers “1”, “2”, “3”, and “4”, thereby displaying the gear position of the automatic transmission. “1 to 4” denote the first to fourth speeds, “P” indicates park, “R” indicates reverse, and “N” expresses neutral.
In the display device for a vehicle according to the above publication; however, the characters “P”, “R”, “N”, “4”, “3”, and “2” are arranged in a lateral line. Accordingly, in order to display the characters, a wide display area is necessary and the size of the display for the vehicle is therefore large.
In the situation where the size of the display area cannot be sufficiently assured, the characters “P”, “R”, “N”, “4”, “3”, and “2” must be small characters. Accordingly, deterioration in visibility occurs.